Communication transmissions intended for a distributed audience are generally initiated from one or more central signal transmission facilities such as central offices to a much larger number of recipient premises. Between the central offices and the recipient premises, signals are often split to create larger numbers of downstream signals for each of the recipient premises. The splitting of signals in this manner helps maintain the uniformity of the transmissions and creates economies of scale that allow for rapid expansion of communication systems to ever increasing numbers of recipients.
Signal splitters typically split an initial signal into a predetermined number of signals that are then selectively received by an existing number of recipient premises. For example, known optical splitter devices generally split an incoming signal into a predetermined number of outgoing signals that are transmitted at all times, regardless of whether the same predetermined number of signals are necessary at any given time.
It is rare that the number of splits in the signal corresponds exactly to a number of required signals at a given time, e.g., as determined from a number of recipients requesting a signal, and systems are typically designed for at least some excess capacity. Accordingly, at least a portion of the incoming signal power is often wasted on unused signal capacity. This may be especially troublesome where signal power is at a premium, e.g., due to a relatively large number of recipients requiring a signal at any given time in a given area.
Additionally, known signal splitting devices offer little flexibility in providing desired signals to associated recipients. Typically, an incoming signal is split to a fixed number of outputs that have fixed recipient destinations. Service providers must therefore deploy service personnel to a recipient site to manually alter existing signal splitting arrangements in order to change distribution of signals to recipients or groups of recipients, e.g., to turn on service, change service levels, etc.
Accordingly, there is a need for greater flexibility in splitting communication signals while minimizing or eliminating signal power losses due to unused capacity.